I've had CS5 a couple days now. I haven't been spending as much time with it as I'd like (those darn "honey-do" lists don't seem to include "master CS5")
Above is my first HDR image using CS5. I used three exposures, -2, 0, +2. I tried to keep it from looking too radically HDR in the final product.
For me, CS5 was worth the upgrade price. The HDR Pro is a MASSIVE improvement over HDR in previous versions, so much so that I can't put enough emphasis on that statement. If you've been thinking about spending money on separate HDR software, I would consider putting that money toward the CS5 upgrade.
The noise reduction and sharpening in ACR have gotten big improvements I've used a few different noise reduction products, and this stands up to them and does a much better job than most, if not all, in my opinion.
Puppet warp, while cool, still seems like a novelty to me. I've played around with a couple photos featuring my daughter (moving arms and legs, etc). I used it to adjust the pose of a hawk. It's not quite as simple and easy as the videos online make it out to be to get perfect movements, but it can do some pretty amazing movements if you want to spend the time on it. I have to admit, I started feeling a little unethical moving the bird around to get a better "action" pose. I'm not sure would feel comfortable using the tool in that way.
Content aware fill (I'll call it CAF), is amazing. If you are filling large areas, it can be a little problematic as it looks to it's surroundings to create the new fill. The larger the area, the further it goes outside the selection to calculate the fill. This can cause some weird things to pop in to the selection, so smaller is better. The spot healing brush with CAF turned on is many times better than it was before and makes removing unwanted objects very, very easy and most of the time doesn't require any other cloning, but it is somewhat dependent on the complexity of the background and the colors and contrast of the image.
The new Refine Edge, is also quite an improvement. I was able to make some nice selections of things like hair and feathers, but you do get varying degrees of success depending on the contrast between what you are trying to select and the background. However, as with the other improved tools, you can do a lot more and spend a lot less time than you might have previously. Even if you can't get it perfectly with refine edge, it will get you very close to where you want to be and you can use other methods to finish your mask or whatever if necessary.
Mini-bridge, very handy. It's nice having it right in PS.
Many different little changes are also very welcome. Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy, such as a check box to keep a notification window from popping up again (i.e. the "maximize compatibility" message). Yes, I know there are areas some of these things can be shut off, but the check boxes to do it right when you get the message instead of hunting through the menu is very nice.
Oh, a word on painting. It's very good. It's not just a simple gimmick. It's advanced, but the learning curve seems to be pretty steep, at least for me. I've played around with a couple portraits of my daughter, and they look pretty good, but I'm sure they would look better with a little practice. A table and pen is essential.
There are several other little changes I haven't worked with yet, but I hope to as the weekend progresses. I'm not going to be able to get out and do any shooting this weekend, so it's "honey-dos" and CS5
So after my long winded post, it comes down to this:
Is it worth the upgrade: unequivocally, YES!
Between HDR and the ACR noise reduction, in my opinion, it's worth the price compared to buying an HDR program and a noise reduction program separately. If you've been interested in an advanced painting program, it also adds a great deal of value to it too.
I'll add some other experiments to this string over the weekend, and I invite anyone else who is experimenting with CS5 to add their examples of the new CS5 features.
Ryan, EXCELLENT overview and image, thanks for taking the time to do all this. I heard that ACR was going to have great added things, sounds like it's a winner. My upgrade is ordered, just waiting...
Here is a very simple example of the puppet warp feature. It actually involved three of the new features...the new refine edge command to get the flower pedals selected well, puppet warp to bend the flower, and content aware fill to fill in behind the warped flower. The first photo is the original, the second I warped and used content aware fill to fill in the background. It could probably use a little clean up in the background where I used content aware fill, but it did a respectable job, I think
The next two photos are examples of the healing brush with content aware fill turned on. The first photo you'll see the branches in the upper left corner of the photo. I used the healing brush with content aware turned on and went over each branch just once.
Ryan, thanks for the great examples here. I've only played with camera raw, but so far I really like what I see. The 64bit version on the Mac is great, except for none of the third party plugins working. I'll force it to 32 bit while I wait for upgrades...incidentally, none of the Nik plugins work in 64 bit mode at this time.
Here's another one of CS5s new things...HDR Toning. Taking a single image and giving it the appearance of HDR. It is very flexible. You can get really crazy with it. I kept things pretty tame here as compared to the before, but it actually does a very nice job. You have many controls to play with different appearances, and you can create your own presets.
Now the HDR-toned version, with very little adjustment on my part from the default setting. I've found it the default setting can look very different depending on the image content.
Thanks for the early info on this. I think it's time for the upgrade. A question to everyone, though, is how the new HDR feature compares to Photomatix Pro, esp. the Exposure Fusion feature? This may be apples vs. oranges, but I wonder how they compare.
Thanks for exploring this Ryan! I upgraded this weekend from CS3, so I have a lot to learn. Right now I'm struggling with getting used to the layout and keystroke changes, then I'll move on to this cool stuff you've been exploring.
Super handy info Ryan! Thanks for all the work you put into this. I'm still playing with mine and learning some cool new stuff. Does anyone know how to get the Nik plug-ins loaded into CS5? They are currently still associated with CS4 on my machine. Do I have to reinstall them? I haven't researched it yet, but thought I would ask.
Sean, I only have Nik Viveza, but I re-executed the .exe install file. I still have CS4 installed, and it re-installed it there and installed them in CS5 all at the same time. I didn't have to re-enter any software keys or anything in CS5, and it it worked just as it did in CS4. I assume the others would work the same, but who knows.
Discussion
16 repliesAbove is my first HDR image using CS5. I used three exposures, -2, 0, +2. I tried to keep it from looking too radically HDR in the final product.
For me, CS5 was worth the upgrade price. The HDR Pro is a MASSIVE improvement over HDR in previous versions, so much so that I can't put enough emphasis on that statement. If you've been thinking about spending money on separate HDR software, I would consider putting that money toward the CS5 upgrade.
The noise reduction and sharpening in ACR have gotten big improvements I've used a few different noise reduction products, and this stands up to them and does a much better job than most, if not all, in my opinion.
Puppet warp, while cool, still seems like a novelty to me. I've played around with a couple photos featuring my daughter (moving arms and legs, etc). I used it to adjust the pose of a hawk. It's not quite as simple and easy as the videos online make it out to be to get perfect movements, but it can do some pretty amazing movements if you want to spend the time on it. I have to admit, I started feeling a little unethical moving the bird around to get a better "action" pose. I'm not sure would feel comfortable using the tool in that way.
Content aware fill (I'll call it CAF), is amazing. If you are filling large areas, it can be a little problematic as it looks to it's surroundings to create the new fill. The larger the area, the further it goes outside the selection to calculate the fill. This can cause some weird things to pop in to the selection, so smaller is better. The spot healing brush with CAF turned on is many times better than it was before and makes removing unwanted objects very, very easy and most of the time doesn't require any other cloning, but it is somewhat dependent on the complexity of the background and the colors and contrast of the image.
The new Refine Edge, is also quite an improvement. I was able to make some nice selections of things like hair and feathers, but you do get varying degrees of success depending on the contrast between what you are trying to select and the background. However, as with the other improved tools, you can do a lot more and spend a lot less time than you might have previously. Even if you can't get it perfectly with refine edge, it will get you very close to where you want to be and you can use other methods to finish your mask or whatever if necessary.
Mini-bridge, very handy. It's nice having it right in PS.
Many different little changes are also very welcome. Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy, such as a check box to keep a notification window from popping up again (i.e. the "maximize compatibility" message). Yes, I know there are areas some of these things can be shut off, but the check boxes to do it right when you get the message instead of hunting through the menu is very nice.
Oh, a word on painting. It's very good. It's not just a simple gimmick. It's advanced, but the learning curve seems to be pretty steep, at least for me. I've played around with a couple portraits of my daughter, and they look pretty good, but I'm sure they would look better with a little practice. A table and pen is essential.
There are several other little changes I haven't worked with yet, but I hope to as the weekend progresses. I'm not going to be able to get out and do any shooting this weekend, so it's "honey-dos" and CS5
So after my long winded post, it comes down to this:
Is it worth the upgrade: unequivocally, YES!
Between HDR and the ACR noise reduction, in my opinion, it's worth the price compared to buying an HDR program and a noise reduction program separately. If you've been interested in an advanced painting program, it also adds a great deal of value to it too.
I'll add some other experiments to this string over the weekend, and I invite anyone else who is experimenting with CS5 to add their examples of the new CS5 features.
Cheers!
Looks like I'm going to have to make the plunge to CS5 as well...
First the original processed out of ACR.
Thanks for the early info on this. I think it's time for the upgrade. A question to everyone, though, is how the new HDR feature compares to Photomatix Pro, esp. the Exposure Fusion feature? This may be apples vs. oranges, but I wonder how they compare.
Thanks,
Kevin
JG